Tuesday, December 31, 2013

It’s the first of January, which means it’s time to
outline my goals for the year in the desperate hope that making them public
will shame me into actually achieving them.

I have some formal, some informal as I think it’s
important to distinguish between those things that you’d like to do and those
things that are necessary for moving your career forward. First, the critical
few:

1. Finish two
first drafts over 30k.

This one speaks for itself and hopefully will be pretty
straight forward. I still have books contracted under my pen name for harlequin
to get done, I haven’t written book 3 of Lifesphere and I have two half
finished 80k-100k novels I’d like to see completed, so I have a lot to choose
from.

2. Edit two novels
over 30k.

Again, pretty self explanatory. I still have to do
another edit of Lifesphere book 2 and edits for Harlequin will be happening
early in the year, so I might get this one done by the end of January.

3. Get under
65kgs.

This has been a goal for a few years running and I
haven’t made any progress. However I stopped taking one of my long term
medications that can cause weight gain a few months ago and recently started an
exercise and healthy eating pact with a friend and the weight is flying off.

On the medication previously I could run on the treadmill
everyday and eat nothing but salad and lean meat and still be gaining weight.
Just maintaining my weight was a constant nightmare struggle. Now I’m off it, I
ate roast pork, potatoes and chocolate for three days straight over Christmas
and still lost a kilogram.

Only three months after stopping the medication, I’m the
lightest I’ve been in ten years.

4. Fully prepare
Lifesphere 2 and 3 for publication.

Obviously I still need the numbers before I can publish
the books, but we’re extremely close to the threshold for book 2 and I suspect
it will boost the downloads for book 1 again. Remember, if you want to see book
2 and 3 this year, you need to keep sharing and recommending book 1 to your
friends.

And informally:

1. Blog once a
week.

I choose blogging as my interactive platform. I know
twitter is all the rage, or even tumblr or facebook. However I like the idea of
actually creating content, and as a writer, that means writing. I love being
able to write articles on the writing process and having people tell me they’re
helpful. I’m very keen to get back to that.

2. Be well enough
to volunteer with the arts and library council.

It’s great to give back to the community, but really I
just need to get out more. I’d like to find a volunteer position that allowed
me to meet a broad range of people in the community, so I’ve love to volunteer
at the library or gallery.

3. Make more time
for friends.

My health makes it impossible to do all the awesome
things I’d like to with friends, like going hiking and clubbing. However I truly
know some of the most awesome people on the planet and I’d like to spend more
time with them.

So there you have it. My goals for 2014. They hinge heavily
on the two axis of my life, writing and illness, but so does my day to day.
Writing is the best thing in my life and illness is the worst, but they both
require a lot of sacrifices on my part. They also both require constant effort,
research, networking and self control. They are both things to be constantly
worked on and improved.

You make the most of what you have though. If I wasn’t
ill, I wouldn’t be able to write full time.

If I wasn’t ill, writing wouldn’t be a struggle though
and I would be a lot further in my career.

I am striving to make 2014 better—not because 2013 was
bad, but because striving to be better is a worthwhile goal in itself.

When my NaNoWriMo buddy and colleague-in-ink asked me what
the first book that gave me a bone-deep jealousy for someone else’s writing
skills was, a single thought resonated through my mind like a Tibetan temple
bell rung by a monk newly introduced to speed.

I fucking hate Matthew Reilly.

It didn’t start out like that. When I had my first taste of
his story-telling style I found it not just palatable, but quite easy to
devour. His simplistic style lends itself so well to the action-thriller genre
that he achieves something not many writers pull off successfully: he creates
pace. Not just in terms of the story, but also how quickly you read each line,
each paragraph, each chapter, until the book vanishes into the wee hours of the
night. It is a neat trick, and something I’m certainly envious of.

But after I’d digested a few books, I started to realise
something. It was around about the hundred-and-fiftieth time I’d read that
someone got shot and their head exploded in a fountain of blood like an
over-ripe melon. And as I sat there wondering if anyone was ever going to die
without their head exploding in a fountain of blood like an over-ripe melon, it
occurred to me that, well, dare I say it? Matthew Reilly really isn’t that
great a writer.

And that pissed me off.

Writing, or maybe
more importantly, being read, had always been the seemingly unachievable dream.
I grew up reading King and Barker, Masterton and Lumley, Tolkien, Eddings and
Salvatore. How the hell could I possibly aspire to sit on the same shelf as any
of them?

And here was Reilly; best-seller, hundreds of thousands of
copies sold, discussing movie rights, with a writing style that, by his own
admittance, earned him countless rejections from editors everywhere. I couldn’t
believe it. I started thinking my creative writing assignment for ninth-grade
English class could probably get published if his stuff could. I mean, if he
could do it, why couldn’t I?

That’s why I love Matthew Reilly.

To me, Matthew Reilly is the embodiment of my belief that
writing is a skill that gets us past editors, but it’s the story that connects us with readers. Anyone can learn to write
well; story-telling, however, is a gift, and you either have it or you don’t.
He has it, and whether you love or hate his work, there is no arguing with his
success, and his connection to his readers. To me, that’s what writing is all
about: telling a story, and sharing it with others. And while the big names
will always be the ones I gaze upon with admiration and devotion from my place
beneath their pedestals, it’s the Matthew Reilly’s of the world that continue
to inspire me to keep chasing my own dream.

You should come too. There’s plenty of room, and it promises
to be a hell of a trip.

***

Raymond Gates is an Aboriginal Australian writer whose
dreams mostly belong in the dark fiction and horror realm. He has published
several short stories including The Little Red Man in Ticonderoga Press’
Australian vampire anthology, Dead Red Heart. He continues to write short
fiction and threatens to write a novel. Look into his mind at: http://raymondgates.com, and follow his
journey via:

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Bad: As I murmur ‘Goodnight, Elliot.’ He jams his entire paw
into my mouth.

Worst: His paw is WET. My whole body goes rigid as I wait
for my taste buds to determine if I am dealing with water from his water bowl
or urine from the litter tray.

At the time I was thinking ‘oh my god, what fresh hell is
this?! Why do I have cats?’ then it occurred to me: whenever any of them yawn,
I jab them in the tongue with my finger. This wasn’t cat weirdness, it was
deliberate and malicious payback.

Friday, March 8, 2013

During my trial, these are the top six things I will have to
say in my defence. They are the reasons I will eventually smother my housemate Apples
in her sleep:

1. Cheese snow.

Cheese snow is a horrible, hateful invention spawned by my
fantastic, top of the line, $900 food processor and Apple’s complete inability
to plan two hours in advance. Because we don’t eat much cheese, we often freeze
parts of blocks. Then Apple’s realises she wants cheese, but it really needs to
thaw overnight.

Turns out if you put frozen cheese through a fine grater, it
turns into this fine, powder snow-like flour. Words cannot accurately describe
how horrific this stuff is. It’s like Heston Blumenthal became evil and decided
to punish the world with cheese. I can’t even see the stuff without throwing up
a little and needing to scrub my hands for an hour.

2. GTFO of my
bathroom.

Apples is obsessed with my bathroom. We have one each and
hers always looks like it’s the lone bathroom in a sorority house. Every time I
am forced to go in there, I wonder if a kegger happened and who that person is
passed out in the bathtub.

The odd thing is, she never seems to use anything in my
bathroom, she just hangs out in there doing annoying things. Things like
turning off my toothbrush when I set it to charge and moving things around.
When I finish a shampoo or a razor head is dead, I line them up on the floor
just outside the shower door, ready for the bin.

After dressing in my bedroom, I return to throw out said
items, only to find them back on their shelves in the shower. WHY!? STOP IT!
JUST LEAVE MY STUFF ALONE, JESUS CHRIST!

3. Every second
counts.

Despite being blatantly oblivious to 1. Her carbon footprint
and 2. All possible fire risks, Apple’s obsessively turns off every power point
she passes... unless it’s a ceiling fan or a light, those she leaves on
forever. God forbid I plug my phone in to charge, because I’ll come back two
hours later to find the switch off and my phone still very dead on the counter.
Likewise with my toothbrush, kindle, computer, the TV...

Seriously who turns off the TV power point at the wall, then
leaves the ceiling fan on all day? Very rarely, she will turn off stuff WHILE I
AM ACTIVELY USING IT.

This will likely be the trigger that ultimately causes me to
snap.

4. No concept of
time.

“I’ll be two minutes.”

“Two real person minutes or two of your minutes?”

“Two minutes, I’m just making tea and I will be right
there.”

I literally watched a thirty minute documentary before she
reached the living room. What happened in that kitchen? What sort of tea was
prepared that took an entire thirty minutes? We will never know.

This happens every time I want to watch a movie or show that
Apples insists she has to watch too. So four times a week.

5. Failure to return
my things.

“Where are your tweezers?”

“In the top bathroom drawer.”

“No, I borrowed them two days ago from there and now I can’t
find them.”

“...They will never find your body either.”

Things have a place. You use them, clean them, then PUT THEM
BACK IN THEIR FUCKING PLACE! I know 99.9% of people empathise with Apples over
my obsessive tidying and organisation. I can’t even express how little I care.
My house, my stuff, my goddamn rules.

All your little objects: hairbrushes, make up, forks, whatever,
they’re all sad if they can’t go back to their own little houses. Stop making
my tweezers sad.

6. Starting house
fires.

This is pretty much the WORST problem you can ever have with
anyone who shares your living space.

Given I set the microwave on fire last week, completely
destroying it, it also makes me a hypocrite. However that’s two fires to
Apple’s eight thousand and fifty and I am honestly at the stage where I am
frightened to leave her unattended in the house.

Eventually I had to ban oil heaters from the house, because
Apples was always hanging her clothes on them. Overnight. At full heat. She was
managing to scorch them at least twice a week, every winter—full on billowing
smoke and black marks.

She also can’t be trusted with candles, because I came home
to find the bookcase on fire once. Yes, an enclosed wooden bookcase, with a
candle on it. Covered in books and newspapers. The other day I walked into the
kitchen to find she’d wrapped a tea towel around the slow cooker and I burnt
myself moving it, because it was already smouldering.

She acted like I was being unreasonable.

“Why do you put up
with that?”

Sometimes people ask why I live with Apples if she annoys me
so much. The answer is pretty simple. There is someone else who is even MORE
annoying than her. Someone that no sane person would tolerate sharing space
with, who makes Apples look like a perfect, sublime dream.

And that would be me.

If Apples wrote a list like this, it would be her magnum
opus. It would be unfinished when she died, a startling, dystopian horror,
thousands of pages long, dipping into the vast depths of human depravity.

I also put up with her because we’re related and I have to.
Mostly, because of that.

My Links

About Me

Born in 1985, Talitha is a geeky Australian writer who spends an unhealthy amount of time reading and watching horror movies. She also loves fresh water shrimps and snakes, and lives in a house dominated by various tanks housing both. She advises that shrimps are the best companions for writers; as they always look like they are typing. Snakes, on the other hand, simply knock everything off your desk—including keyboards, mugs, entire computers and shrimp tanks.
Talitha’s other interests include entomology, rock climbing, reading, web design, photography and video gaming.